


come the spring, come the fall

by Anonymous



Category: Vinland Saga (Anime), Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Brother/Brother Incest, M/M, Mistletoe, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26764972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Mistletoe doesn't mean quite what it someday will, to other people, but it does mean something.
Relationships: Torgrim/Atli (Vinland Saga)
Kudos: 4
Collections: Anonymous





	come the spring, come the fall

In the early hours of morning, he's not quite asleep and not quite awake when something cool presses into the small of his back. Something still cold with the outdoor frost. "What's that?"

"Mistletoe. S'in season. And good luck."

"Not much good luck for Baldr." Atli shivers. That's always been his least favorite story about the gods. "Come on, get it out of here."

"What're you gonna do, sit on it?" His brother's voice is close against his ear now, closer than they usually come in bed, in the winter months.

"If it gets crushed, I'm not cleaning anything up." Atli's not sure if mistletoe berries are gushers, come to think of it. They might be the kind that just trickle a little clear juice. They're not for eating, he knows that much. So he's never bothered with them. The two of them aren't much on ritual and beseeching the gods.

Torgrim's big hand presses into his back, warm around the leaves and berries of the mistletoe. "Never thought you minded having to clean up in the morning."

He gets like this, near the end of winter. Stir crazy. Not much to do but sleep well and eat well, and sometimes sleep around. The younger crew members are starting to replace them there, though. Being home means sleeping under their dad's roof again, and they're not as mad as they used to be. Here it's more dangerous even than the nights on the march, when they sleep without a tent. No one in Askeladd's band thinks twice about finding men cuddled up in the morning. It gets chilly in the early hours, even on the warmest nights.

In bed, though, they tend to get **entwined**. A habit from when they were small and it meant nothing, and carried on through their teens when it meant everything. It doesn't much matter whether they're asleep or awake; where his brother's arm pulls, Atli goes and he stays. And they're well past the age where it could be argued, how could we know what it looks like, when we've never left home? Space is hard to come by in a house like this. A little, little place to come back to, despite Torgrim's best efforts.

The best solution they've found is sleeping back to back. Torgrim grabs at the blankets and even chews on them, and Atli kicks sometimes when he's waking up, he's so unused to another back pressed against his. But they get used to it, as winter goes on.

"You think Frigg went round begging everyone's cock not to go hurting her sweet little son?" His brother's arm tugs him a little closer than they get under this roof, as a rule. "Or maybe she wouldn't have bothered with his brother, eh? Stupid mistake."

"Stop it. Don't you remember how that one ends?" The firelight doesn't stretch as far as it did early in the evening. Atli's not about to complain of the heat behind him and the arms around him.

"Who cares how it ends? I'm paying you a compliment." 

Baldr is light, and hope, and everything pure and beautiful. Atli's never heard tell of anyone wanting to bugger him, but that's what Torgrim's usually getting at when he starts talking poetry. Atli's not sure if it means anything to humans, that the most beautiful of the gods ends up the way he does.

Ever since he started taking his brother up the arse, Atli's taken a mild interest in how these affairs turn out for other people. Not well, usually, but not always terribly. Loki gets up to a lot, and he does all right for himself, up until the very end of everything. Resilience is the important thing, seems to be the message of Loki's adventures. But that's **if** you get caught. And Loki's a sneaky little thing, besides. Nobody would dream of comparing Atli to him, who saw him by daylight. Maybe not many would compare him to Baldr, either. But Torgrim gets like this, near the end of winter.

Well, it's not like the whole story's even happened yet. It's what helps start the end of the world. Ragnarok must be a ways off yet. His toes are cold, and his brother's thighs are warm even through their clothing.

"Just be more careful than Hodr." The clench of his shoulders gives way—he always gives way—and he settles back. Back into the kind of embrace he misses on cold winter nights.

Torgrim's beard is slightly damp. He must've been out looking for mistletoe long enough for the frost to stick to him. Or walking off some midnight wood. If he was, it's grown back now. More than Baldr, god of light, Atli feels like Odin's father being licked out of the ice by that friendly cow.

"What's old Hodr wind up doing, again?" He's never been the most attentive to the gods and all their goings-on. And Atli doesn't have much room to lecture him. It's just that this story's always stuck in his mind since childhood.

"Never mind." Atli guides his brother's hand downward. It fits nicely around him, the way it does by night in the spring and the fall, and evenings in summer, when they can get away with it. The sprig of mistletoe pressed between them is new, but he's used to the beard. With his hair let down to sleep, it doesn't scrape so much at the back of his neck. And he's used to being quiet. They got started at that in this very house.

Hodr has to be the older brother. All big gestures and bright ideas. But it's nice—to be warm in the winter—to have someone who sees you, feels you, as brilliant enough to be blinded.


End file.
